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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.

"The Syrian military used an exotic chemical weapon on rebels during an attack in
the city of Homs, some U.S. diplomats now believe.

That conclusion — first reported by Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin and laid out in a
secret cable from the U.S. consul general in Istanbul — contradicts preliminary
estimates made by American officials in the hours after the December 23 strike.
But after interviews with Syrian activists, doctors, and defectors, American
diplomats in Turkey have apparently rendered a different verdict. It’s important to
note, however, that this was the conclusion of a single consulate within the State
Department, and there is still wide disagreement within the U.S. government over
whether the Homs attack should be characterized as a chemical weapons incident.

“We can’t definitely say 100 percent, but Syrian contacts made a compelling case
that Agent 15 was used in Homs on Dec. 23,” an unnamed U.S. official tells Rogin."

"The State Department is publicly discounting claims made by its own diplomats
about a chemical weapons attack in Syria.

On Tuesday, Foreign Policy detailed a secret and previously unknown cable from
the U.S. consulate in Istanbul which came to the explosive conclusion that Syrian
government forces dropped a hallucinogen known as “Agent 15″ on rebels in the
town of Homs on December 23.

But less than a day later, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland has
denied the report, saying that the Foreign Policy story ”did not accurately convey
the anecdotal information that we had received from a third party regarding an
alleged incident in Syria in December.”

"Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad has moved with his family and a select
cadre of associates to a warship off Syria’s coast, where he is being guarded by
Russian naval forces, a Saudi daily reported on Monday.

The Russian protection effectively amounts to political asylum for the Syrian
president, unnamed intelligence sources told the Saudi daily al-Watan. Assad now
travels by helicopter to mainland Syria for official meetings in his presidential palace
in Damascus, having lost faith in his security detail, the report said."

"Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad has moved with his family and a select
cadre of associates to a warship off Syria’s coast, where he is being guarded by
Russian naval forces, a Saudi daily reported on Monday.

The Russian protection effectively amounts to political asylum for the Syrian
president, unnamed intelligence sources told the Saudi daily al-Watan. Assad now
travels by helicopter to mainland Syria for official meetings in his presidential palace
in Damascus, having lost faith in his security detail, the report said."

I rather trust him than have unstable factions come to power in Syria.

Really, in the end it makes no difference which nation protects which ruler. Russian has her own interests to watch out for.

This is not about "stable factions". If "Stability" is all you want, that's a pretty low bar.

Assad literally can no longer hold power without Putin's aid. There is a price to pay for that; he needs to give Russia more and more power over Syria if he hopes to stay on the job.

I don't really have an opinion of whether Syria should or shouldn't have a new ruler; just want to point out that Russia is a foreign power, and that if you can't rule without outside help, you are not really the ruler any more.

When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.

Not sure about GRU, but our "beloved friends" from Northern Caucasus are all there Well, not all of them, sadly, but some of them for sure. Youtube has enogh videos from Syria with russian speech in background.

Yes, yes, it's wikipedia -- but look at the list of "Belligerents" -- there's a reason why many of us don't care who "wins" in Syria.. and more that we just yearn for stability. Suddam was probably a terrible tyrant to his people, but he also managed to keep religious extremists bottled up, so ultimately who is better for whom and why? Who's fighting to overthrow whom?

There's also this: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world...ent-a-big-blow -- there's continued demonstrated failure for the "rebels" to form an organization that can be viewed to provide a stable power transition with the soldiers on the ground admiring the "battle hardened" fundamentalists and little enthusiasm to curb them. Here's a quote from the article:

"The rise of jihadist rebels in the last few months as a dominant force in the armed opposition, and the possibility of a backlash by the Sunni majority against Mr Al Assad's Alawite minority, has made international powers hold back from supporting the increasingly radicalised, mostly Sunni rebels."

"At least one Iron Dome missile defense battery was deployed Sunday in
northern Israel amid reports of intense security consultations with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Syria and the possibility of chemical weapons
falling into the hands of Islamist rebels or being transferred to the militant group
Hezbollah.

Silvan Shalom, a vice prime minister, described the movement of such weapons as
a “red line” that could lead to Israeli military action."